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$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'Dietary lessons',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2019/04/25.jpg" alt="A wall of support" class="framed-centred-image" width="800" height="480"/>
<section id="drudgery">
	<h2>Drudgery</h2>
	<p>
		My discussion post for the day:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			This week&apos;s discussion assignment is to discus how caching can help speed Web server performance.
			The topic specifically mentions Web servers; we&apos;re discussing Web server caching, not database server caching.
			At first, I thought this was a mistake in the wording of the assignment, seeing as this is a course on databases, not a course on the Web.
			Surely we were meant to talk about how database caching could be used to improve the performance of websites that make use of it, right?
			Nope.
			Some of the Web server&apos;s caching techniques that it can use relate to the queries it makes to the database server.
		</p>
		<p>
			First of all, creating a connection to the database server via the Java Database Connectivity $a[API] takes time <a href="https://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/476000/mod_book/chapter/187010/Database%20System%20Concepts%204th%20Edition%20By%20Silberschatz-Korth-Sudarshan.pdf">(Silberschatz-Korth-Sudarshan, 2001)</a>.
			This, no doubt, also applies to connecting to databases using other interfaces, but the book specifically mentions the Java Database Connectivity $a[API].
			So if you&apos;re using server-side Java, caching your connections and reusing them can save time and improve the performance of the website <a href="https://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/476000/mod_book/chapter/187010/Database%20System%20Concepts%204th%20Edition%20By%20Silberschatz-Korth-Sudarshan.pdf">(Silberschatz-Korth-Sudarshan, 2001)</a>.
			Again, this probably applies to more than just Java-based $a[API]s.
			Caching database connections if you plan to access the database regularly is probably a good idea.
		</p>
		<p>
			Another performance tweak that saves time using caches is to cache the result gotten from a database, so you don&apos;t have to wait for the database to send that same information to the Web server each time after the first <a href="https://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/476000/mod_book/chapter/187010/Database%20System%20Concepts%204th%20Edition%20By%20Silberschatz-Korth-Sudarshan.pdf">(Silberschatz-Korth-Sudarshan, 2001)</a>.
		</p>
		<p>
			The final method of using caches to speed performance mentioned by the textbook is basic webpage caching <a href="https://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/476000/mod_book/chapter/187010/Database%20System%20Concepts%204th%20Edition%20By%20Silberschatz-Korth-Sudarshan.pdf">(Silberschatz-Korth-Sudarshan, 2001)</a>.
			You can cache entire Web pages that have been generated from database-supplied information.
			Like caching query results, this results in the database not even being contacted for many page loads that it really doesn&apos;t need to be contacted for.
			Using basic logic though, we can see caching of entire Web pages should be avoided for certain use cases though.
			If you need a script to run on page load, for example as a view counter, caching will prevent the script from running unless special measures are taken.
			(If you get the page to cache and still run the counter, the counter can&apos;t be displayed, as the displayed count would be cached too, but you might want the counter for your own reference.)
			There&apos;s also the issue of logins.
			If you display a user&apos;s name on the page, for example, you either can&apos;t use a cache or you have to cache a separate version of the page for each logged in user and another version for people who are not logged in.
		</p>
		<div class="APA_references">
			<h3>References:</h3>
			<p>
				Silberschatz-Korth-Sudarshan. (2001). <a href="https://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/476000/mod_book/chapter/187010/Database%20System%20Concepts%204th%20Edition%20By%20Silberschatz-Korth-Sudarshan.pdf">Database System Concepts, Fourth Edition</a>. Retrieved from <code>https://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/476000/mod_book/chapter/187010/Database%20System%20Concepts%204th%20Edition%20By%20Silberschatz-Korth-Sudarshan.pdf</code>
			</p>
		</div>
	</blockquote>
</section>
<section id="religion">
	<h2>Religion</h2>
	<p>
		One of the regular missionaries brought another guest missionary instead of their usual partner again.
		Hearing new people&apos;s take on things is interesting, but at the same time, it makes it hard to make sure we&apos;re on the same page.
		When I discussed the Satan-possessed serpent in the garden, this missionary was convinced that there was no snake.
		They said only Satan was there, and that depicting him as a snake was a metaphor.
		Satan was depicted as a snake, they said, because snakes are the lowest to the ground, representing Satan&apos;s lowness.
		But if the snake was a metaphor, why does the Pearl of Great Price say that Satan put ideas into the snake&apos;s head?
		I didn&apos;t put up a fight because there were bigger problems: things that were not labelled as parables were supposedly not literal.
		I&apos;ll get back to that in a bit though.
		Anyway, the snake issue came up again later, and they actually read the passage this time.
		And they agreed, they&apos;d been wrong, and there actually was a literal snake after all.
	</p>
	<p>
		Anyway, when it comes to parables ...
		There are two types.
		First, there are the ones that are actually labelled as parables.
		For example, there was the story of the olive trees in the vineyard, which involved evil olives.
		I forget whether that was labelled as a parable or a dream with symbology.
		In any case, it was made clear that nothing the story said was literal.
		In these types of cases, the meaning is obfuscated.
		And that&apos;s not good, to be sure, but it the worst it does in make that one part of the book have no objective meaning to it.
		You can&apos;t claim a specific meaning, as when it&apos;s proven false, you just grab onto a different interpretation.
		The second type is parables that <strong>*aren&apos;t*</strong> labelled as parables.
		Personally, I don&apos;t think the original authors intended any of those parts to be parables, but whether they did or not is of no consequence.
		The point is that if you start labelling parts that can be proven false as not being literal, you can&apos;t tell what&apos;s literal or not.
		Any time something is proven false, you just add it to the growing list of what isn&apos;t to be taken literally, and nothing is ever then falsifiable, which is sort of the entire point: you&apos;re trying to prevent it from being proven false by any means necessary.
		When things aren&apos;t falsifiable, they can&apos;t be proven true either, which means the whole book is utterly useless.
	</p>
	<p>
		The new missionary also told me early on that the prophet Joseph Smith testified that the Book of Mormon is the truest book on the planet.
		They then went on, building off the &quot;fact&quot; that this book&apos;s contents are true without giving me a chance to dispute it.
		It took quite a while to get in that one person&apos;s testimony like that is meaningless.
		I used the analogy that I could testify that a book claiming that the Great Squiddy created and saved us all by fighting a giant shark called the megalodon was the truest book, but I know that to be false and I&apos;m certain the person that made up the Great Squiddy knows it would be false as well.
		They agreed that the testimony of others doesn&apos;t mean much, and said that&apos;s why it&apos;s important to build up a testimony of your own.
	</p>
	<p>
		I pointed out that no commandment was given to Adam nor Eve to be fruitful and multiply, and that that commandment was actually given to Noah and his sons.
		Because of that, I reasoned, there actually was no requirement for Adam and Eve to sin.
		They weren&apos;t backed into a corner.
		I expected to be met with resistance on that point, but I wasn&apos;t.
		The guest missionary was glad I pointed that out, and the regular missionary was silent.
		No further discussion of that was made though.
	</p>
	<p>
		The new missionary discussed that Elohim is bound by certain laws, though not the laws that we&apos;re bound by.
		These laws, according to the missionary, are irrevocable.
		I pointed out once more that this makes it seem like there&apos;s a higher power than Elohim.
		This seems to come up frequently, though last time, it was explained away.
		The new missionary agreed that Elohim might be a created being, but also said it doesn&apos;t matter.
		We don&apos;t need to know that.
		We know what we need to know to get where we&apos;re supposed to be aiming for the time being.
		We&apos;ll learn more when we get there.
		I pointed out that it does matter.
		If we don&apos;t know what we&apos;re actually shooting for in the end, how do we know it&apos;s positive?
		They didn&apos;t really have a satisfying answer.
		They claimed morality to be based on the higher laws, but the higher laws are created by someone, which again, I pointed out means that morality isn&apos;t actually objective like they claim, but rather based on the opinion of a being or beings that we have no comprehension of.
		We don&apos;t know if their morality is good.
		They didn&apos;t seem to understand though that if the rules of morality are decided - by anyone - they&apos;re arbitrary and subjective.
	</p>
	<p>
		Another thing I pointed out was the Euphrates, and how it flowed out of Eden.
		If we follow it to its source, we&apos;d find Eden.
		The new missionary talked about how it&apos;s interesting to try to find Eden based on information from the bible.
		They also said that Eden would be atop a mountain, seeing as it had four rivers flowing out of it.
		It needed the elevation for the water to flow away.
		It seemed that they weren&apos;t going anywhere with that.
		After a bit though, they mentioned Pangea.
		That was actually a very good point.
		If you believe in both Pangea and Eden, than Eden would have been on Pangea.
		The land has shifted, and the continent broken up.
		That would mean that the Euphrates is no longer necessarily attached to where Eden once was.
		It&apos;d also explain where the other four rivers went.
	</p>
	<p>
		Satan&apos;s &quot;lies&quot; came up, so I pointed out how Satan had given Adam and Eve the truth.
		The fruit didn&apos;t kill them, and in fact gave them the knowledge Satan said it would.
		On the other hand, Yahweh claimed that if Adam ate the fruit, he&apos;d die the day he did.
		However, he didn&apos;t die that day, and instead lived hundreds of years longer.
		(Eve seems to have been given a similar threat, but without a time frame; she&apos;s die, but no mention e was made of dying the very day she ate it.)
		The guest missionary claimed that they <strong>*did*</strong> die that day, and asked what I meant that they hadn&apos;t.
		So I explained about how they&apos;d lived long enough to have several children after that day.
		Their response was to try to redefine death on me.
		Um.
		No.
		Death has a very specific meaning.
		It&apos;s an end.
		They then tried to claim it was a &quot;spiritual death&quot; though again admitted that their spirits didn&apos;t end.
		In other words, it wasn&apos;t a spiritual death either.
		There was no death that day.
		Being separated from Yahweh is a banishment, not a death.
	</p>
	<p>
		At one point, they started talking about how we can recognise good because it leads to Jesus, and we can recognise evil because it comes from Satan.
		But also, things that are good are good <strong>*because*</strong> they come from Jesus, but things that are evil <strong>*because*</strong> they come from Satan.
		I pointed out the circular logic there: we know it&apos;s evil because it comes from Satan and we know it comes from Satan because it&apos;s evil.
		They backtracked a bit.
		And in fact, I may have simply misunderstood and the above assessment is simply not what they intended in the first place.
		Anyway, their new explanation was that we can know from innate light Jesus installs in us when we&apos;re born, but that light fades.
		So when we&apos;re older, we can&apos;t know.
		In other words, none of that&apos;s helpful to us as adults, because it doesn&apos;t help us figure anything out whatsoever.
	</p>
	<p>
		I also brought up how we&apos;re punished for the sins of our parents, and pointed out a relevant verse.
		I forget which one; it was one we read today, not one from my notes.
		They had an interesting take on it.
		The punishment is revocation of blessings once given.
		However, while we don&apos;t have those blessings because of what our parents did, we never had those blessings to begin with.
		Therefore, the blessings weren&apos;t taken from us, so we weren&apos;t punished.
		I guess that makes sense, in a very twisted way.
		It doesn&apos;t seem right to be sure, but I can&apos;t for the life of me figure out how to argue against that logic.
		My guess is because it&apos;s technically true.
		While we&apos;re effectively being punished, we&apos;re not <strong>*technically*</strong> being punished.
	</p>
	<p>
		The guest missionary told me about how they came to know Jesus to be real.
		Best of all, they found this knowledge through semi-repeatable experiment.
		Jesus has agency, and thus can&apos;t be forced to do anything.
		That&apos;s what makes this experiment only semi-repeatable: you&apos;re trying to provoke a detectable response from him.
		Still, it&apos;s about the best testing you can do that would provide evidence for the religion at all.
		They said that when Jesus issues commandments, he promised a specific blessing if you obey and a specific curse if you don&apos;t.
		So the goal is to test this by following commandments and watching for the promised blessings.
		They challenged me to look for if/then statements from Jesus to locate these commandments, blessings, and curses.
		I obviously can&apos;t go back and re-read the entire part of the Book of Mormon today that I&apos;ve already read to see what I&apos;ve missed on that front, but I looked though the small section of the bible I&apos;ve read to locate the ones there.
		I haven&apos;t seen any promised blessings, but I saw two promised curses.
		One was a lie and the other never came to pass because the commandment wasn&apos;t broken.
		Neither apply to me for my experiment, as the commandments are to not eat the forbidden fruit and to not kill Cain.
		It&apos;s far too late to do either of those things.
		It&apos;s also worth noting that there was no commandment not to kill yet when Cain killed Abel.
		I hadn&apos;t noticed that before, as I just assume murder to be wrong, even without anyone telling me not to do it.
	</p>
	<p>
		The regular missionary said they&apos;d bring some videos on a $a[USB] drive on Saturday.
		I forget what those videos are going to be about.
		It&apos;s been an eventful day, and I didn&apos;t have time to write this journal entry until late.
		It should be interesting to see what they present though.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="prayer">
	<h2>Prayer impressions log</h2>
	<p>
		I prayed with the missionaries, thinking Jesus for our meeting, asking that he help us understand his word, and asking that he help me receive answer to my prayers.
		As usual, we talked afterwards, so no contemplation or impressions were present.
	</p>
	<p>
		After my dietary meeting, I prayed about how I&apos;d read the sixth chapter of Genesis.
		I prayed that because yesterday&apos;s chapter was about the lineage from Adam to Noah, that I thought the chapter I read today would be about the great flood.
		I prayed that I was excited to see what Jesus would have to teach me in that chapter.
		In response, I saw my hands with the cyan nail polish they have on now, but with large gouges taken out of the polish.
	</p>
	<p>
		I prayed that this wasn&apos;t the full story of the flood, but it was the beginning, and even the beginning doesn&apos;t add up.
		In particular, I prayed that Yahweh&apos;s motivations and logic don&apos;t seem to make sense.
		I saw yellow tulips with a green field behind them.
		I then saw other flowers, then just a field.
		The green field became green fur.
		I could tell by the way it moved that it was hair, and not grass any longer.
		After a bit, I saw shaggy green dogs, some of which had black markings on them.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="monk">
	<h2>Smooth monk</h2>
	<p>
		As I biked to the dietary lessons, I was stopped by a stranger beside the road.
		They told me they&apos;re a monk, and that they were giving away books on yoga and meditation.
		They handed me three or four books.
		That was kind of neat.
		They then asked about my necklace, thinking it was a chakra necklace.
		Nope.
		Just a queer pride necklace.
		They then explained that they were giving out the books in hopes of getting donations.
		Wow.
		That&apos;s manipulative!
		Give people books, then guilt them into paying you for them.
		I&apos;m already shorter on money than I was expecting to be at the moment due to loaning my workmate \$600 $a[USD], I&apos;m not going to have time to read the books for a long time (if ever), and I have no intention of buying books that are likely proprietary anyway.
		I didn&apos;t want to be rude, so I claimed not to have cash on me, and explained that I was on my way to the hospital, not out shopping.
		So they took the books back.
		Yeah, that&apos;s not a donation then, if you&apos;re only getting the product if you pay.
		Sneaky, sneaky.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="diet">
	<h2>Dietary lessons</h2>
	<p>
		When I got to the hospital, I was told to fill out some forms because I&apos;m a new patient.
		Why didn&apos;t they have me fill these out the first time I came, when I was setting up the appointments, instead of waiting for the first appointment?
		They also wanted an emergency contact for the account.
		I don&apos;t really want an emergency contact, but I figured I&apos;d add one if they&apos;d be reasonable about it.
		If they&apos;d allow some method of contact besides a telephone number, I&apos;d add my father.
		It&apos;s not that my father minds being contacted via telephone though.
		As someone that doesn&apos;t use telephones when they can help it, I wouldn&apos;t know my father&apos;s telephone number to give it to them.
		Surprisingly, they did allow email-based emergency contacts, so that worked out in their favour.
	</p>
	<p>
		The dietician met with each of us individually to get our heights, weights, and circumferences.
		I guess our progress is going to be measured.
		They then gave us binders before sending us to the meeting room where we met each other.
		There were five of us, plus the dietician.
		It turns out the dietician is one of those people that doesn&apos;t know the difference between a notebook and a binder though, and called the binders &quot;notebooks&quot;.
		That didn&apos;t bode well.
		If they didn&apos;t know what they were talking about even with common knowledge, how could I trust what they had to say about their field?
		By the end of the meeting though, I was pleasantly surprised.
		We moved through the material rather quickly though, and I wasn&apos;t fast enough to take notes on everything I wanted to, so when I went back later to write this journal entry, I had to leave out what I didn&apos;t remember.
	</p>
	<p>
		First, there was an introduction to what this class is.
		The curriculum has only been going on for a couple years now.
		Given that the class lasts for about a year, that&apos;s not very long.
		If there aren&apos;t multiple instances of the class going on concurrently, this is only the third iteration.
		We were also informed that if we have to miss one of the meetings, it won&apos;t affect our ability to participate in future meetings.
		The material in the meetings doesn&apos;t build off the material of past meetings like that.
		I do plan to attend all the meetings, but it&apos;s interesting that all of this information will stand on its own and not require information from other lessons.
		For the last half of the sessions, we&apos;re going to watch informational $a[DVD]s.
		Are those $a[DVD]s going to take up the entire sessions?
		I&apos;m not sure.
		Additionally, it seems that while a couple of us (including myself) thought that there were seven meetings, one person had a list of twelve scheduled meetings, and another had a list of only five.
		I&apos;m not sure if the remaining participant had a schedule yet.
		In any case, the dietician didn&apos;t know when any of the meetings were, but seemed to think there&apos;d be seven of them, most likely.
		They said they&apos;d get us the schedule at the next meeting, so we&apos;ll all be on the same page at that point.
	</p>
	<p>
		To begin with, we did introductions, in which we gave our names and told why we were there.
		One person was there to improve their health and because they were in pain.
		Losing weight would help with both.
		The next person needed surgery, but it either wasn&apos;t possible to get or wasn&apos;t feasible to get while they were so overweight.
		I guess it wasn&apos;t urgent surgery, as we can&apos;t shed fat overnight.
		The next person was a former narcotics addict.
		They&apos;d managed to get clean, but their body reacted poorly to it, and they&apos;d gotten really fat from it.
		The final person, besides myself, had met with doctors to try to get their weight down, but the doctors were stumped.
		And then you have me.
		I just don&apos;t like the way I look.
		I guess that makes me the most shallow of the group, unfortunately.
		And you know what the kicker is?
		I&apos;m also the thinnest of the group.
		I mean, my doctor agrees that I should lose some fat, which is why they referred me here.
		I do need these meetings, but I&apos;m the one that needs them the least.
		I felt a bit shallow explaining my reason for attendance: than my fat makes me look more like a man, and I&apos;m not a man.
	</p>
	<p>
		The dietician said that they won&apos;t be giving us a diet.
		Instead, these meetings will focus more on the psycological aspects of losing weight.
		Well that&apos;s going to make things easier.
		I&apos;m not going to have to struggle to keep with their dietary restrictions while simultaneously dealing with my own.
		And I won&apos;t even have to bring up my dietary restrictions in the meetings, most likely.
		This is going to be great.
		They also said that a lot of what they&apos;ll be presenting is research-based.
		I think that was supposed to help us trust the information more, but it made me trust it a bit less.
		I mean, a lot of it is research-based?
		Not all of it?
		Where are you getting your information if not from research?
		Seriously.
		Hopefully they just found the wrong words, like when they called the binders &quot;notebooks&quot;.
		They also said that these meetings would provide us with several tools.
		They then used the analogy that you don&apos;t use every tool in the toolbox when you work on a job, and said that we didn&apos;t need to use every tool presented in our own efforts.
		Some would be right for us, while others won&apos;t be.
	</p>
	<p>
		The dietician brought up $a[BMI] as an indication of where we are compared to where we should be.
		I brought up how my bike rides made me thinner, but also heavier, due to muscle mass, and how my doctor said my $a[BMI] was actually going up even though I was in a better state.
		Another participant brought up bone density, and how if you&apos;ve got better bone composition, you $a[BMI] will also be higher than if you don&apos;t.
		The dietician agreed that $a[BMI] isn&apos;t always the best indicator, which is why they also measured our circumferences.
	</p>
	<p>
		The first things we touched on were goal-setting, self-efficacy, and relaxation.
		I don&apos;t always set goals like I should.
		It&apos;s something I need to work on.
		Much of the time, it&apos;s because I don&apos;t know what to aim for.
		I see the big picture of where I want to get, but I&apos;m lost as to the smaller steps needed to get there.
		I&apos;m getting better at self-efficacy, though it&apos;s again, something I need to work on.
		The problem is that my sense of self-worth and my confidence in my abilities were completely beaten out of me when I lived with Summer.
		She always used to tear me down, mentally and emotionally.
		I&apos;ve recovered quite a bit, but I still have more work to do before I can get up to the level a normal human being would have.
		As for relaxation, thinking I can relax is a total joke.
		I&apos;ve got way too much going on in my life to relax.
		I&apos;m not even sure it&apos;s possible to relax given the censorship I&apos;m under.
		It stresses me out so much that even if nothing else was going on, I don&apos;t think I could really relax much.
		Relaxing is something that may need to simply be put off for the time being.
	</p>
	<p>
		Attitude is a big part of what we covered.
		We&apos;re supposed to achieve a learned optimism.
		That&apos;s going to be difficult.
		When things go wrong, we&apos;re supposed to tell ourselves &quot;this too shall pass&quot;.
		We&apos;re also supposed to learn to be more mindful.
		We&apos;re to take time out to just focus on the moment during activities, and acknowledge what we&apos;re doing.
		The example given was breathing.
		When performing some activity, we can pay attention to our breathing as we do so.
		We&apos;re to try to become fully aware of what&apos;s going on in our bodies, hearts, and minds.
	</p>
	<p>
		Surprisingly, the dietician told us to eat what we want.
		However, we should treat ourselves as guests, complete with a place mat, a folded napkin, and things of that nature.
		We should also sit down to eat.
		We shouldn&apos;t stand and shouldn&apos;t rush.
		We should eat slowly, and pay attention to the texture and the flavour of the food.
		These are very interesting tips, for sure.
		The part about an actual meal laid out with a place mat isn&apos;t going to work out for me for now given that I can&apos;t even have any real chairs at my table though.
		Until my Summer moves out, there really isn&apos;t the space for a dining area.
		We&apos;re also to try eating about two thirds of what we think we want, then see if we&apos;re still hungry.
		If we eat that and aren&apos;t satisfied, we can go back for more, but we should start with less than we think we want, and we should eat until we&apos;re satisfied, not until we&apos;re full.
		It&apos;s also helpful to use small dishes and small utensils.
		I used to do that when I lived with Summer, actually, but it really annoyed her for some reason.
		I guess it was just another of her control freak issues.
		We&apos;re to be more mindful of what we eat.
		By being more mindful, we can be free to make better dietary decisions.
	</p>
	<p>
		We should also avoid waiting to eat until we&apos;re very hungry.
		When you&apos;re very hungry, you tend to eat a lot more than you actually need to.
		We should then stop eating before we&apos;re very full.
		Just eat to satisfaction, if at all possible.
		It also apparently takes about twenty minutes for the stomach to send notification to the brain that it&apos;s got enough, or even that it&apos;s full.
		So aiming for full before stopping and eating quickly, again, are counterproductive.
		You&apos;ll end up fuller than you want to be.
		Aiming for satisfaction and eating slower will allow you to eat less and still be fine.
	</p>
	<p>
		We also discussed that it takes about six weeks to form a habit.
	</p>
	<p>
		It seems there are seven types of hunger we need to be aware of.
		First, there&apos;s eye hunger.
		We see something appetising, so we want to eat it.
		Next, there&apos;s nose hunger.
		We smell something appetising, so we want to eat it.
		There&apos;s mouth hunger: the desire to taste and feel the texture of food in our mouths.
		There&apos;s stomach hunger, which involves feelings in the stomach and even stomach rumbling.
		There&apos;s bodily and cellular hunger.
		This involves strange cravings and fatigue.
		There&apos;s mind hunger, which apparently is influenced by the media, but I don&apos;t have television service and don&apos;t tend to look into food online unless I&apos;m already after something specific and want more information.
		If the description given to us is at all accurate, this one isn&apos;t impacting me in any negative way, and I can safely ignore it.
		Actually ...
		Perhaps this involves social aspects as well.
		When people try to push me toward the keto diet or try to change other aspects of what I choose to eat, perhaps it&apos;d fall into this category if it actually impacted me.
		But for the most part, all that just slides off of me, like water off a duck.
		If this is what I think it is, I&apos;m just not as susceptible to it as some people are.
		Of course, I&apos;m still <strong>*very*</strong> susceptible to all the hungers mentioned before this one, so I definitely have my weaknesses.
		And finally, we have heart hunger.
		Memories and emotions had while eating certain types of food can drive us to eat those foods more often and in larger quantities.
		I&apos;m pretty sure I&apos;m too emotionally damaged to experience this type of hunger.
		I certainly haven&apos;t experienced it any time that I recall.
		So it&apos;s not going to be an issue for now.
		Once I&apos;ve healed a bit more, maybe it&apos;ll be a problem, but I&apos;ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
		I need to focus on the problems I do have before worrying about problems I don&apos;t.
		Anyway, given these types of hunger, we&apos;re supposed to discern which type of hunger we&apos;re experiencing and use that to determine whether we should eat.
		For example, stomach hunger and bodily/cellular hunger are important to satisfy with food.
		Other types of hungers should be satisfied with some activity that doesn&apos;t involve eating.
	</p>
	<p>
		Next, we covered the top strategies for weight management.
		First was exercise.
		I want work sit-ups into my daily routine like I used to, but there&apos;s no space in my home for it any more, and there won&apos;t be space for it until Summer moves out.
		I do bike twenty-six kilometres every Thursday though, and I do bike to work daily and run all my errands by bike.
		I&apos;m getting more leg exercise than most people in the modern day.
		Most people do everything they can vis car.
		Second is strength training; lifting weights and whatnot.
		Maybe I&apos;ll get some weights when I have space for them.
		I don&apos;t have time to go to a gym though, and even if I did, I&apos;d rather just get a set of weights myself so I don&apos;t have to continuously pay gym membership fees.
		Third, it&apos;s helpful to log your food intake.
		As soon as that was brought up, I figured I could add said log to my journal, where I put everything else I&apos;m logging.
		The dietician said not to keep a food diary though.
		They said that sort of thing is too detailed, and I guess takes too much time.
		Fourth, stay focused on being healthy, not on being thin.
		I think this is nice in theory.
		I think I&apos;m mostly healthy already, at least physically.
		My mind still needs some work.
		I think being thin though would help me with mental and emotional health, but again, being thing would still be the goal here.
		I&apos;m not sure how to leverage this strategy just yet.
		Fifth, find out what&apos;s eating at us.
		Oh, I know what&apos;s eating at me.
		The main thing is the censorship at the school.
		Then we have Summer and my boss, who are terrible people in my life.
		And there&apos;s the fact that everyone thinks I&apos;m a man.
		I&apos;ve got plenty eating at me.
		That probably isn&apos;t even everything, but it&apos;s the big things.
		But anyway, we&apos;re supposed to respond to our stressors using methods other than eating.
		I&apos;m not sure I actually eat because of any of these things though.
		Sixth, we should get support.
		I&apos;m not sure my life is such that I can do that right now.
		I&apos;m pretty much alone for the time being.
		The people in my life aren&apos;t exactly my allies.
		I have adversaries and I have acquaintances.
		It&apos;s something I&apos;d very much like to change, and it would help my mental and emotional health to do so, but there&apos;s just no time to look for friends with the school&apos;s censorship weighing me down.
		Seventh, if we need one easy meal per day, we should use a meal-replacement bar or beverage.
		I&apos;m taking that to mean we shouldn&apos;t have more than one effortless meal per day.
		I do need to work up the energy to get back to actually cooking meals again.
		Eighth, we should watch proportions.
		Watching proportions at home is an easy enough concept, and doesn&apos;t need further explanation.
		When eating out though, we should seek to eat half of what we&apos;re served, and take the other half home to eat as a different meal.
		Ninth, we should try to lose weight slowly and with small changes.
		In my case, I don&apos;t even care about weight.
		I just care about girth.
		So I guess aim to lose girth slowly.
		It&apos;s possible to lose weight quickly, but the problem is that quick weight loss tends to involve losing both fat and muscle.
		You also eventually burn out, losing your will to continue with your efforts, so you binge.
		Binging regains you your fat, but not your muscle.
		So quick weight loss tends to have the net effect of costing you muscle, but not fat, and because muscle burns more energy to keep itself alive than fat does, you end up getting even fatter.
		We were specifically told to stay away from drastic diets, and losing half a pound to one pound per week is a good goal.
		Tenth, we should eat mindfully, and not in a rush.
		We covered that previously, so I won&apos;t get into too much detail again here.
		Eleventh, give yourself credit for a job well done and celebrate your successes.
		That&apos;s something I&apos;m not really all that good at.
		Again, after having been torn down by Summer most of my life, I&apos;m only now beginning to learn to see my own value.
		This is something I need to work on more than just for dieting, but for mental health in general.
		And twelfth, we should sign up for and keep attendance in a weight-management course.
		Which is something we&apos;ve all started by coming to today&apos;s meeting.
		We just need to keep up the pace.
	</p>
	<p>
		The dietician said we should identify reoccurring obstacles to our success, and address them before they happen again.
		They addressed things such as oversleeping and missing our morning workouts, or getting really hungry at night and binging.
		I don&apos;t think either is an issue for me.
		I guess one of my obstacles is not always remembering to bring food to work, and having to either starve or eat the breadsticks there, which can&apos;t be good for me.
		I always go with the breadsticks though.
		Having healthier food on me every day would probably help.
		They also said that small steps add up to success.
	</p>
	<p>
		Apparently, a questionnaire was supposed to be mailed to each of us.
		I think one of us might&apos;ve gotten the questionnaire, but the rest of us didn&apos;t, so the dietician handed them out at the end.
		We&apos;re to bring them filled out to the next meeting.
	</p>
	<p>
		We were also asked to set a goal.
		The goal could be anything that might help us with out fat problem.
		Of course, it makes sense to choose a goal using the material presented to us today.
		I chose to log what I eat in my journal.
		I know the dietician said a journal is too detailed, but my journal is how I get stuff done.
		It&apos;s what I use to keep myself motivated when I otherwise don&apos;t have the strength to push forward.
		Anyway, logging what I eat will have a number of positive effects.
		First, it&apos;ll force me to be mindful of what I eat.
		I&apos;ll have to consciously register everything I put into my body.
		It&apos;ll also counteract my tendency to eat just because food is available, as I&apos;ll have to be accountable for anything I eat.
		And finally, it&apos;ll counteract my tenancy to eat just a little more when ther&apos;s just a little more left, because again, I&apos;ll be accountable for every little bit I eat.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="diet">
	<h2>Dietary intake</h2>
	<p>
		As I mentioned above, I&apos;ll be keeping a record of what I eat.
		I can eat whatever I choose without restriction, at least for the time being, but the catch is that I have to log it.
		So if I don&apos;t want to log something, I don&apos;t get to eat or drink it.
		The exception I&apos;m making to this rule is tap water.
		I can drink as much tap water as I want without measuring and logging it.
		When I&apos;m at home, measuring it is inconvenient.
		When I&apos;m at work, measuring it is unfeasible.
		And honestly, I don&apos;t think how much water I intake even needs to be monitored.
		Other drinks have nutritional and calorific properties though, and should be accounted for.
	</p>
	<p>
		Before the dietary meeting, I had chips and salsa.
		I didn&apos;t realise I&apos;d be recording it though, so I didn&apos;t keep track of the amount.
		I also had a thirty-centimetre sub sandwich; no meat, no cheese, several fruits and vegetables, with vinegar.
	</p>
	<p>
		At the $a[EUGLUG] meeting, meeting, I had a 1.2-litre slushy and one hundred thirty-nine small jalapeño pretzel chunks.
		On the way home, I was finding my legs not to have the strength I needed them to have, so I ate an energy bar thinking I didn&apos;t have enough fuel.
		No such luck.
		I guess I haven&apos;t recovered my strength enough to make two trips to Eugene in a day effectively yet.
	</p>
	<p>
		Once I returned home from the meeting, I had a pickle.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="wall">
	<h2>Solidarity Wall</h2>
	<p>
		On the way to the dietary meeting, I saw a large, strange box with writing all over it.
		I had no time to stop and investigate though.
		Due to meeting with the missionaries just prior, I really didn&apos;t have time to spare in getting to the meeting, and to make matters worse, I had to return home after having started my trip twice, due to having forgotten things I needed to bring.
		I made it on time, but I wouldn&apos;t&apos;ve if I&apos;d taken the time to see what the box was about.
	</p>
	<p>
		On the way home though, I checked it out.
		It turns out it&apos;s something called a <a href="http://solidaritywall.org/">Solidarity Wall</a>.
		People write encouraging messages on it to let rape victims know people care about them and what happened to them.
		Someone even filmed my hand as I wrote on it, so if you see a video of a hand with cyan nail polish and a rainbow ring on the middle finger, that might be my hand.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="bank">
	<h2>Car loan offer from the bank</h2>
	<p>
		The bank the car dealership from a while ago was working with sent me a letter that arrived today.
		They say they&apos;ve changed their mind and can&apos;t offer me the deal they promised before.
		They&apos;ll offer me a different deal though.
		However, they won&apos;t tell me what the deal is and instead told the car dealership only, so I&apos;d have to talk to them to find out what option is available to me.
	</p>
	<p>
		Um.
		The sale already ended though.
		It&apos;s a little late for that.
		Why are they even bothering to send me this letter?
		Did they not understand that the dealership was running a sale?
		That seems like the sort of thing the dealership would have told the bank, but then again, what do I know?
	</p>
</section>
END
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